I remember I asked my mom the same question when I was a mini kid.
She told me “Because every other month is white history month”
Now I don’t necessarily belive that is true- but as someone pointed out before- It is sad that we need any of these “history months”.
I remember in 5th grade during Black History Month being very confused by a bulentin board in my school. There were various black historical figures with stories about thier accomplishments. The one that confused me was Mathew Henson. It said that Peary was not really the first man to reach the north pole but Henson. Henson, being a black man, was not given credit.
Later I discovered that Henson has been a member of Pearys team but the article conviently left that out so that I spent a great deal of time believing that this poor guy had made all of that huge effort only to be denied his due credit.
I think Black History Month is OK but my experience tells me that the black history presented is just as biased and questionable as any.
I like the “My Family History Month” idea. I’ll offer up some questionable feats but present them in a credible atmosphere so folks will be confused whether Lindburgh crossed the Atlantic or my great uncle Bob that waxed his prop.
There’s an afrocentric shool of history that seems to be a source of some controversy. I don’t know how many authoritarian leaders they have but some of them claims are pretty outrageous. For example some of them claim that Africans civilized China and were kicked out sometime around 1000-700 BC. Some of my favorite include Cleopatra was really black, the greek civilization came from Africa, and the Sphinx had its nose shot off to eliminate any “negroid” features.
There may be some legitimate afrocentric historians but I really haven’t seen one. I don’t consider someone who specialized in African history or African American history as being afrocentric.
Marc
Polycarp wrote:
Me, too (for the 60s). But, as I’ve been saying, why not always teach the whole story. Not just in February. And why require that groups of people have political clout before teaching the truth about their experiences? Why not just teach it anyway?
Because it would take too long, and teachers are expected to, in high school level survey courses in American history, cover the time period from first European colonization to the present day.
Also, it wouldn’t really be useful. History, as a discipline, is more than just a timeline. If it was, you wouldn’t need historians…you could just make a list of everything that ever happened and be done. History, though, is about assigning value to facts, ranking those facts, and connecting them to each other.
Let’s take an example I know is important to you; the settler-Indian conflicts, and the extermination and forcible relocation of various Indian nations. Why did this happen? Was it because the Indians living in America were savage barbarians who needed to be conquered? Was it an act of unimitigated greed by the white settlers who desired the land of the peaceful Indians? Was it because of mutual ignorance of the other’s culture and values? Was it because the frontier represented a neccesary safety valve in American society and the Indians were just in the way? Was it due to some historical law that says when a centralized and technologically advanced society meets one that’s less centralized and technologically advanced, the more centralized, technologically advanced society will conquer the other? Was it because white people are just racially superior to Indians and deserved to win? Was it some other factor I haven’t listed here?
All of these are different suggestions made to explain settler-Indian conflict, and you can find evidence to support any one of them. Which viewpoint do you teach? All of them? Or do you just teach none of them and put out all the facts about settler-Indian conflict and let your students draw their own conclusions? That’s a lot of facts, and each of the facts were collected by people with their own viewpoint, and their own biases. You know, what is Americo Vespucci’s goal when he writes the letter you referenced? What are his biases, and how does what he wrote reflect his goals and biases? What were Chief Joseph’s goals and biases when he gave his speech after surrendering to the U.S. Army?
What you’re suggesting is admirable, and you’re right that in history classes, the history of those groups not in power, and without effective lobbying groups, do get ignored, and that’s a bad oversight. I just don’t know how to solve it.
Well, good thing BHM is coming around again. Maybe this time you’ll learn something. George Washington Carver didn’t invent peanut butter. Mashed peanuts existed before his career in science. He invented crop rotation methods that allowed southern farmers to grow taxing crops like tobacco and cotton without depleting the soil (alternate by growing soil-enrichening crops like peanuts on the same land). He then found hundreds of practical uses these alternate crops, growing revenue for the war-torn southern farmers.
Just as I am free to say so.
Yes you are, but I don’t know why you want to waste your time telling me I misinterpreted the OP when apparently the OP himself either thinks I was right or cannot be bothered to correct me.
Waste my time? Pointing out that you are claiming the OP feels a way he has not given evidence for? Well excuuuuuuuse me. I will be filing this conversation away for later.
I never realized your debating consisted of making claims beyond what it available and just “wait and see” if you have to retract it. I respect you more than that. Maybe you’re right, I don’t know. But neither has the OP responded to this thread yet. From what I know this is a semi-infrequent poster (not unlike someone else we know who takes frequent breaks from the boards). S/he’ll be back. Maybe then we’ll know. But surely not now.
Finally, don’t get pissed at me for your hasty generalizations based on god knows what experience you’d like to pull out to justify you making it. It is not a waste of time. It is Great Debates.
FWIW, I like the idea of Black History Month, and I’d like second gobear that it’s meant as “a remediation of neglect.”
There’s a real push now in history courses at university to ensure that history is not only written by the powerful and the victors. My History 201 textbook, for instance, examines the Roman empire not only from the points of view of emperors, senators, and official historians, but also from the viewpoint of women, plebians, and Roman slaves. We get to see the Visigoths as a distinct culture, and not one that suddenly appears to swoop down on Rome, sack it, and vanish from history.
Some people consider this approach to be PC, but I like it. It makes history easier to understand, and I think more useful for understanding the world and our place in it than some bland offical version, filled with (straight/white/male/wealthy) Heroes and Evil (conquered) Villains.
A way that you don’t think he has given evidence for. I think he has. It seemed obvious to me that his suggestion of giving a month to every race was meant to seem ridiculous, and that his real goal is, as he said in his own words, to “just revoke the Black History Month”. I offered my thoughts on why he would want to do such a thing – because he doesn’t think black history deserves a month. Doesn’t seem too complicated or far-fetched to me.
You apparently think I’m wrong. Fine. But unless you have some secret line of communication with 0rbytal you don’t have any special information on the subject that I lack, and I don’t see you offering any alternative interpretation based on what was actually posted. You could easily have said something like “Maybe the OP just meant that it was silly to have a special month for black history rather than incorporating it into the regular curriculum, did you ever think of that?” and we could have had a nice discussion about that, but you didn’t. You’re just saying that I’m wrong, repeatedly, with no explanation. And that is not only rather weird and petty but also pointless because it is not going to move me to rethink my previous remarks and it adds nothing to the greater discussion about Black History Month.
I’m sure you will. I’m aware that you have a crush on me, and frankly it’s getting a little creepy how you follow me around on the SDMB this way. But you haven’t broken any rules and I don’t expect that you will, so you’re free to do as you like even if that includes making a big scrapbook of my posts for your own personal amusement.
It does not take an alternative interpretation to find faulty logic. The OP offered two suggestions: revoke BHM, or honor other histories as well. The OP noted that it seemed BHM was racist.
I have about 9 posts/day, largely in GD alone, and we have some similar interests (philosophy and language to name two examples). We are bound to run into each other, the board just isn’t that big. You are not a “buddy” nor do I do “Lamia searches”. Again with hasty generalizations. Please do not do this to me in this manner.
I have nothing more to say on that subject in this forum.
[hijack]I wish someone had a crush on me.[/hijack]
**
And I feel that it was clear that the “suggestion” of honoring other racial groups with months of their own was intended to be ridiculous rather than serious. It is possible that this was a gross misunderstanding on my part, but I don’t think so.
**
It would perhaps be a hasty conclusion to jump to if the only evidence I had was that you often turn up in threads I’m posting to, but you said yourself in this thread that I was one of several Dopers you had some potential romantic interest in. I can be wrong about things, but I’m not in the habit of just inventing them.
That’s wonderful, because I don’t either.
Lamia wrote (to Eris):
What on earth!? Way to wad up your credibility and fling it out the window. He expressed a mild fondness of you along with a bunch of other people in one of those giddy, space-filling MPSIMS threads. And your head swelled up so big that you concluded he is stalking you from thread to thread in GD. Get a grip on reality.
Okay… Let me clear some things up…
I started this thread right before I had to go to work. I did read the replies while at work but I could not respond to them. “infrequent poster”–yes but, not an infrequent reader. I read 50 different threads (especially like reading Libertarian’s posts) a week on these boards, but I don’t always post (hence, the low number of posts) because I don’t always have time. This is the first free time I have had to respond.
To clear up the conflict between Erisolver and Lamia: The reason I started this thread is because I know that history is biased. There are thousands of witnesses who go unheard in all events throughout history. But I also know that if you really want to know something about history or science or math or whatever, you can go online, or in an encyclopedia and look at up, and / or just come here and ask. I don’t like seeing advertisements on NBC or ABC or whatever program I am watching, that talk about what some black man or woman did (and only in February), when I never see them about Native Americans, or Chinese, or every other race. To me that looks racist. So my agenda was clear: Do not segregate one month from the other 11 months to remember blacks throughout history, without chosing to remember other races as well. Just teach what they did throughout the year, or better yet — show kids where they can find more information. Then they might remember it.
Anything else I need to clear up?
Damn-it!..there just went the last vestigial puff of air in my woefully sputtering self esteem… People around here get stalkers without even trying…Just once I’d like to wake up and find a dead rabbit in my mailbox.
Its just another case of being the fat kid during dodge ball in gym class… Rand
by monstro
I love you. monstro. And don’t you never forget that.
erl has sent me a very considerate e-mail and I plan to discuss the subject with him as much as I think it needs discussing through e-mail, not here on the board. I am sorry I did not think to approach him via e-mail myself in the first place, but I don’t intend to compound that mistake.
Actually, the reason why my head is swelled up is because I just had neurosurgery. But at least I can get my glasses back on my swollen head now and see well enough to read, type, and destroy my credibility on the SDMB, so it’s not a huge liability.
I think that educators have a little more responsibility to bear than just pointing kids at a library, but I agree that teaching a racially integrated history throughout the year would be better than having special racial history months. I’d be willing to bet that anyone who supports the idea of Black History Month, or any other special history month, would be overjoyed at the prospect of having that history become a regular part of the school curriculum and not something to be dealt with only at a particular time. I apologize for attributing any beliefs to you that you do not actually hold, but I will suggest that such a misunderstanding could have been avoided altogether if your OP had actually said what you have said here, that you would like to see the accomplishments of African-Americans and other minority groups taught throughout the year.